Before, During, And After (That Which Changed Them All)
by stellary
Summary: Even within this particular section of the SIS, James Bond, C.M.G., R.N., is a legend. (Skyfall spoilers)


Even within this particularly secretive section of the most secretive SIS, James Bond, C.M.G., R.N., is a bona fide legend.

There really isn't any other way to explain the way people sneak glances at him whenever he enters a room as if he's a 1950's matinee idol. Worse if he's wearing one of his damned suits. (What the hell even are they, Armani? Tom bloody Ford?) It doesn't matter that the word "legend" is most often bestowed upon people who have long passed. When a man has under his belt a rampage through an embassy, a high-stake poker win, a self-resuscitation _and_ a resurrection after getting shot by a fellow agent, among many other outrageous things, he is a legend.

Q remembers well the aftermath of his previous official "death"; mostly he remembers the things that he caught on Eve's face.

They were not particularly close then—Skyfall was the beginning of a shift in many things—but they didn't have to be for him to pick up the symptoms of PTSD (though she did her damnedest to hide them and was nearly successful), and that she was being haunted by the worst thing that could happen to a field agent.

She'd had one confirmed kill prior to being forced—there is no denying, and no-one tried to, that her hands were forced, not even that other M who was so hard on all of them but never one to pass the buck—to pull that trigger. The second one, the one that's supposed to be easier, became her everlasting nightmare.

_'Agent down,' _She'd croaked through the line, sounding as though those were going to be her last words. And then the sound of the rain outside, Q recalls, grew intolerably deafening.

The day M announced in her typical aseptic fashion that Bond had survived the shot and had come back into the fold, Eve invited Q to her flat for the first time for strong drinks after work. That evening she said a lot of things, some work-related, others shoe and tailoring-related, none of them double-0-seven related. In her voice lurked this slight, peculiar tremor that Q didn't remember noticing when their offices went kaboom.

"It's not professional to have regrets," Eve is known to recite this mantra that everybody knows to be one of the cornerstones of that other M's school of thought. They all try to incorporate it into their personal philosophy when it comes to work, because they are secret service employees who everyday must make decisions that even if not directly, instantly, could cause damage or loss of life down the line, over time. Q suspects, however, with a vague sense of horror, that Moneypenny is attempting to_live_ by it. So far, it's not helping her.

The first time Q met Bond, the impression of the latter was that of a mere smooth snarker (if a particularly well-dressed one). Though to be fair, the National Gallery isn't exactly a place which calls for the skill set of an elite field agent and weapon of the UK government; the most pulse-jumping thing that could occur in there is the flash on someone's camera going off in front of an especially delicate oil.

Later, when Bond was stuck in the tube tunnel and suddenly drawled, in an infuriatingly casual way,_'Oh perfect, there's a train coming,'_ Q got his first real taste of what it's like to be working with this moving, breathing crisis of a man. It was a curse-inducing thing really, but—_don't say it, don't say—_**but,** it threaded a known thrill through Q that had last visited when he'd hacked into the main frame of the MI5 (for the very first time).

Being a quartermaster of the MI6 isn't exactly dozy business, mind you, but working with Bond is to take that excitement level up to eleven, or a hundred. Q has got a not so vague feeling that this could only be _not quite so good_ for his career (he hasn't forgotten the thoughts flashing across his mind when Bond had asked him to lay a bread crumb after him and M that only Silva could trace), or worse—for his person.

Inevitably, Q thinks about what he himself would do when (and it _would_ be a simple matter of time) faced with the demand of making a split second decision, now that he's most often the one who knows what Bond is up to by the minute (whether or not the cursed man chooses to stay on the map, thank you very much). Next time the train may be a hovercraft, the USB drive may be a golden egg laid by a mythological duck, whatthefuckever, but the time will come. The certainty of this is only next to that of the fact that everybody will die, or lie.

In the end, the young quartermaster decides that it's one of those "What would you do if you are told that you've only got one week to live" deals—you will never know what you are going to react unless it's actually happening—and sweeps it aside. (Of course, he's only kidding himself and the thought is for ever niggling at the back of his head whenever he's monitoring Bond—it happens with all the double-0s but Bond takes the cake, naturally. None else carries a death wish nearly as sizable or as proud as he does.

To observe Bond after Skyfall is to observe a man who has became an orphan all over again (the dubious liberty of accessing personal history files on one of the more secure servers is one Q takes with few qualms). He masks what he has lost, effortlessly, behind unchecked swagger and smirk, but whenever something associated with that event (such as the indefensible total destruction of the Aston Martin) is mentioned, the momentary darkening of his eyes is unmistakable.

And "Skyfall" has since become something like a word of tribal taboo within the branches that had been involved. Even Mallory avoids bringing it up as much as possible.

Now, Q is headed into a meeting to be briefed on their next mission. M, Eve, and Bond will all be there. He adjusts his glasses, gives the room—which is being filled with the pre-mission energy—a last scan. And he is off.

Adventure and danger await.


End file.
